We’ve been reading a lot in the blogosphere this week about blogger Michael Anti (Zhao Jing). MSN Spaces shut down his blog in the wake of a post that supported Beijing Daily News journalists who were themselves standing up to government censors. Rebecca MacKinnon — former CNN Beijing bureau chief, now a blogger and one of the forces behind Global Voices — has put together a pretty readable version of the sotry.
Note, his blog was TAKEN DOWN by MSN people. Not blocked by the Chinese government. Anti is one of China’s edgiest journalistic bloggers, often pushing at the boundaries of what is acceptable.
Rebecca MacKinnon, RConversation, Microsoft takes down Chinese blogger
Rebecca contributed to a show we did back in June on China’s content and access controls: The Great Firewall of China
Google and Yahoo have not covered themselves in glory over the China issue either.
Are we surprised? We’ve ignored the plight of Tibet for 5 decades. China is nothing to the U.S. but a huge pool of cheap labor and future consumers. We’ll do anything to support us making money over there. What’s a little censorship?